Politically speaking, do heroes matter? Are we living in a post-heroic age?
The Republican Hero addresses both these questions. The general tenor of modern thinking is that heroes do matter but that the modern age is characterized by a narrowing of moral horizons once illuminated by heroes, secular and spiritual. Michael Lusztig argues that the modern world is not post-heroic. He makes the case that the modern age is the
most heroic age, if measured in terms of the Aristotelian currency of balance and completeness. To this end, he identifies four main hero-types—the epic, magnanimous, Romantic, and common. Each can rightfully be called a republican hero: each contributes to the promotion or protection or provision of republican values. Each exemplifies the heroic virtues of their age. However, taken conjunctively, each contributes to what Lusztig conceives as the complete republican hero of the modern age.
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: Heroes and Republicans
1. The Epic Hero and the Roots of Republican Governance
2. Justice, Magnanimity, and the Republic
3. Rome and the Limits of Heroic Magnanimity: The Great, the Greatly Good, and the Not So Good
4. The Christian Hero in the Orders of Nature and Grace
5. Romanticism: The Egotistical Sublime and Moral Agency
6. God, Godliness, and the Birth of the Common Hero
7. The American Common Hero
Conclusion: What Is a Republican Hero?
Notes
Works Cited
Index
About the author
Michael Lusztig is Professor of Political Science at Southern Methodist University. He is the author of
The Culturalist Challenge to Liberal Republicanism, among other books.
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